Weardale Railway

[52A]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7600061.stm

The Yanks are coming!

[60041]

Good news. I have visited Weardale quite a few times and have always thought that both the railway and the area have huge tourist potential.
Some friends of mine are volunteers at the railway and are quite optimistic about the future.

[M&D]

Just a draft point. What is the long term aims of the weardale railway. I know they want to connect with Bishop Auckland, but what about westwards?? I recall at one time there was a suggestion to push back to Wearhead. This is a beautiful unspolit area which would surely attract tourists, walkers and locals...did a connect to Alston ever get thought about by the NER??

[Bryan]

I think it was considered but that is as far it got.

[stembok]

Report in current R. M. p.11 that the the rumoured American buyers of the Weardale Railway may intend concentrating on a freight only operation, though where the traffic would come from I'm unsure, as the cement works, which ensured its survival in B R days, are long gone. The hope is that some kind of volunteer weekend or holiday passenger operation might still be possible.

[richard]

How close does the line go to the Lafarge / Blue Circle quarry, or is this the one that you are talking about? I thought it closed much more recently.

There's a plan to turn the quarry site into a geothermal resort - could be an interesting tie in with a tourist railway?

(A geothermal resort might seem weird, but I have a recent paper somewhere on the results of a deep borehole drilled at the site. Heat is from radiogenic decay in the Weardale granite batholith)


Richard

[Bryan]

The line ran through what was the cement works which were in the valley whilst the actual quarry was up and over the hill.
Some cement wagons were actually trapped in the yard after the line closed, I don't know if they were scrapped on site or taken away by road.

[Bryan]

This link to multimap should illustrate the situation.
Do not know how old the photo is though as I believe the site has now been flattenned and cleared.
Can anyone else confirm?
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=wearda ... 20DL14%206

[stembok]

Richard:The Blue Circle /Lafarge Works was indeed the one to which I was referring and, as I pointed out, the reason for the lines survival in the 1960s- actually 1964 - when the works was opened. The works, closed in 2003 and were demolished quite recently, but long before that the cement traffic had been transferred to the roads from early 1993 and at this point B R proposed closure. This led to the setting up of the preservation society to save the line. There is currently a proposal for a geothermal energy plant on the site of the works

[richard]

I see the quarry is to the south. Looks like there might be some vehicles in the quarry as well. I know it closed in the "10 or so years" period(?) although the borehole was drilled a couple of years ago.


Richard